ment. Nor was this the only evil to which society was exposed. The different CHAP. II. castes were strictly commanded to marry with those only of their own class and profession; and the mixture of the classes from the union of the sexes guarded against by the severest laws. This, however, was an occurrence which laws were inadequate to prevent. Irregularities took place; and children were born who belonged to no caste, and for whom there was no occupation. No event could befal society more calamitous than this. Unholy and infamous, on account of that violation of the sacred law to which they owed their unwelcome birth, those wretched outcasts had no resource for subsistence excepting either the bounty of the established classes; to whom they were objects of execration and abhorrence, not of compassion and generosity; or the plunder of those classes, to which they would abandon themselves with all the ingenuity of necessitous, and all the ferocity of injured men. When a class of this description became numerous they must have filled society with the greatest disorders. The nature of the case would have drawn the philosophical mind to this conclusion, had no testimony existed; it so happens, however, that this is one of the few points in the antient history of India which we can ascertain by specific proof. In the preface of that compilation of the Hindu Laws which was translated by Mr. Halhed,* it is stated that, after a succession of good kings who secured obedience to the laws, and under whom the people enjoyed felicity, came a monarch evil and corrupt, under whom the laws were violated, the mixture of the classes was perpetrated, and a new and impious race were produced. The Brahmens put this wicked king to death, and by an effort of miraculous power created a successor endowed with the most excellent qualities. Nevertheless, the kingdom did not prosper, by reason of the Burren Sunker, so were this impure brood denominated; and it required the wisdom of this virtuous king to devise a remedy. He resolved to form a classification of the mixed race, and to assign them occupations. This accordingly was the commencement of arts and manufactures. The Burren Sunker became all manner of artisans and handicrafts; one tribe of them being appointed weavers of cloth, another artificers in iron, and so in other cases, till the subdivisions of the class were exhausted, or the exigencies of the community supplied. Thus were two evils remedied at once. The increasing wants of an improving society were provided for; and a class of men, who were the pest of the community, were converted to its service. This is

* Vide Halhed's Code of Gentoo Laws, preface.

BOOK II. another important era in the history of Hindu society; and having reached this stage, it does not appear that it has made, or that it is capable of making, much further progress. Thirty-six branches of the impure class are specified in the sacred books,* of whom and of their employments it would be tedious and useless to present the description. The highest is that sprung from the conjunction of a Brahmen with a woman of the Cshatriya class, whose duty is the teaching of military exercises. The lowest of all is the offspring of a Sudra with a woman of the sacred class. This tribe are denominated Chandalas, and are regarded with great abhorrence. Their profession is to carry out corpses, to execute criminals, and perform other offices which are reckoned in the last degree unclean and degrading. If the Sudras are by the laws of Hindustan placed in a low and base situation, that of all the impure and mixed classes is still more degraded and odious. Nothing can equal the disgust and insolence to which it is the lot of the lowest among them to see themselves exposed. They are condemned to live in a sequestered spot by themselves, lest they should pollute the very town in which they reside. If they meet a man of the higher castes, they must turn out of the way, lest he should be contaminated by their presence. "Avoid," says the Tantra, "the touch of the Chandala, and other abject classes. Whoever associates with them undoubtedly falls from his class; whoever bathes or drinks in wells or pools which they have caused to be made, must be purified by the five productions of kine.Ӡ

* Colebrooke on the Indian Classes, Asiat. Research. v. 53. On this subject, however, that intelligent author tells us that Sanscrit authorities in some instances disagree. Classes mentioned by one are omitted by another; and texts differ on the professions assigned to some tribes. It is a subject, he adds, in which there is some intricacy.

+ Colebrooke, Ib. The President de Goguet is of opinion that a similar division of the people into tribes and hereditary professions existed in the ancient Assyrian empire, and that it prevailed from the highest antiquity over almost all Asia, (part I. book I. ch. i. art. 3; Herodot, lib. i. cap. 200; Strab. lib. xvi. p. 1082; Diod. lib. ii. p. 142.) Cecrops distributed into four tribes all the inhabitants of Attica. (Pollux, lib. viii. cap. 9. sect. 100; Diodorus Siculus, lib. ii. p. 33.) Theseus afterwards made them three, by uniting, as it should seem, the sacerdotal class with that of the nobles, or magistrates. They consisted then of nobles and priests, labourers or husbandmen, and artificers; and there is no doubt that, like the Egyptians and Indians, they were hereditary. (Plutarch. Vit. Thes.) Aristotle expressly informs us, (Polit. lib. vii. cap. 10.) that in Crete the people were divided by the laws of Minos into classes after the manner of the Egyptians. We have most remarkable proof of a division, the same as that of the Hindus, being anciently established among the Persians. In the Zendavesta, translated by Anquetil Duperron, is the following passage: "Ormusd said, There are three measures [literally weights, that is, tests, rules] of conduct, four states,

and five places of dignity.-The states are; that of the priest; that of the soldier; that of the CHAP. II. husbandman, the source of riches; and that of the artizan or labourer." Zendavesta, i. 141. There are sufficient vestiges to prove an ancient establishment of the same sort among the Buddhists of Ceylon, and by consequence to infer it among the other Buddhists over so large a portion of Asia. See a Discourse of Mr. Joinville on the Religion and Manners of the people of Ceylon, Asiat. Research. vii. 430, et seq.

narchical.

CHAP. III.

The Form of Government.

BOOK II. AFTER the division of the people into ranks and occupations, the great circumForm of gostance by which their condition, character, and operations are determined, is vernment, mo- the form and qualities of the political establishment; the methods by which the social order is preserved. Among the Hindus, according to the Asiatic model, the government was monarchical, and, with the usual exception of religion and its ministers, absolute. No idea of any system of rule, different from the will of a single person, appears to have entered the minds of them or their legislators. "If the world had no king," says the Hindu law,*" it would quake on all sides through fear; the ruler of this universe therefore created a king, for the maintenance of this system." Of the high and uncontrolable authority of the monarch a judgment may be formed, from the lofty terms in which the sacred books describe his dignity and attributes. "A king," says the law of Menu,† " is formed of particles from the chief guardian deities, and consequently surpasses all mortals in glory. Like the sun, he burns eyes and hearts; nor can any human creature on earth even gaze on him. He, fire and air; He, the god of criminal justice; He, the genius of wealth; He, the regent of waters; He, the lord of the firmament. A king, even though a child, must not be treated lightly, from an idea that he is a mere mortal: No; he is a powerful divinity, who appears in human shape. In his anger, death. He who shows hatred of the king, through delusion of mind, will certainly perish; for speedily will the king apply his heart to that man's destruction." The pride of imperial greatness could not devise, hardly could it even desire, more extraordinary distinctions, or the sanction of a more unlimited authority than this.

The plan, according to which the power of the sovereign was exercised in the government of the country, resembled that which has almost universally prevailed in the monarchies of Asia, and was a contrivance extremely simple and rude. In the more skilful governments of Europe, officers are appointed for the discharge of particular duties in the different provinces of the empire; some for

the decision of causes, some for the control of violence, some for collecting the CHAP. III. contingents for the expense of the state; but the powers of all centring immediately in the head of the government, and all acting as connected and subordinate wheels in one complicated and artful machine. Among the less instructed and less civilized inhabitants of Asia, no other plan has ever occurred to the monarch, for the administration of his dominions, than simply to divide his own authority and power into pieces or fragments, as numerous as the provinces into which it was deemed convenient to distribute the empire. To each of these a vicegerent was dispatched, who carried with him the undivided authority and jurisdiction of his master. Whatever powers the sovereign exercised over the whole kingdom, the vicegerent exercised in the province allotted to him; and the same plan which the sovereign adopted for the government of the whole was exactly followed by the vicegerent in the government of a part.* If the province committed to his sway was too extensive for his personal inspection and control, he subdivided it into parts, and assigned a governor to each, whom he intrusted with the same absolute powers in his district, as he himself possessed in the administration of the greater department. Even this inferior deputy often divided his authority, in the same manner, among the governors whom he appointed of the townships or villages under his control. Every one of these rulers, whether the sphere of his command was narrow or extensive, was absolute within it, and possessed the whole power of the sovereign to levy taxes, to raise and command troops, and to decide upon the lives and property of the subjects. The gradations of command among the Hindus were thus regulated; The lowest of all was the lord of one town and his district; The next was the lord of ten towns; The third was the lord of twenty towns; The fourth was the lord of 100 towns; And the highest vicegerent was lord of 1000 towns. Every lord was amenable to the one immediately above him, and exercised unlimited authority over those below. The following law appears to provide for

*Kaempfer, in his History of Japan, book I. ch. v. says, "The whole empire is governed in general by the Emperor, with an absolute and monarchical power, and so is every province in particular by the prince, who, under the Emperor, enjoys the government thereof."-For the similarity of the institution in the Ottoman government see Volney's Travels in Syria and Egypt, ii. 376.

+ Laws of Menu, ch. vii. 115–117. There is a very remarkable similarity between this mode of subdividing authority among the Hindus, and that adopted by the Incas of Peru. "The Incas," (says Garcilasso de la Vega, part I. book II. ch. v.) " had one method and rule in their government, as the best means to prevent all mischiefs and disorders; which was this. That of all the people in every place, whether more or less, a register should be kept, and a division made of ten and ten, over which one of the ten, whom they called the Decurion, was made superior over the other nine;